Mandy Griffiths
To celebrate the upcoming launch of her new inspirational website “Your Zen Life” with fellow Australian actress and close friend Phoebe Tonkin, we spoke with Teresa about being healthy, romantic zombie films, and the joys of working with your best friend.
Something I think is really missing from a lot of movies and television shows is very positive female friendships, so it is so nice to see that represented in real life with yourself and Phoebe Tonkin, particularly in such a competitive industry. Is it nice having someone in your life that is going through similar experiences to you?
Oh absolutely, Phoebe is my soul sister and I couldn’t be happier to be embarking on this positive journey with her. We both felt that if we could use our platforms to help people then we are really living fully. It is so important to be of service where you can and to be able to do something with a best friend that you’re so passionate about is a true blessing in my life.
It’s so nice to see busy professionals make the time for something so positive, can you tell us about it and how it came about?
Your Zen Life (YZL) was born because both Phoebe and I have a deep passion for health and wellness. We are always sharing healthy living tips with our friends and then decided that we wanted to share the information that we have gathered over the years to an even wider community. YZL is an online portal for everything health, fitness, nutrition, positive living, spirituality, philanthropy. We want it to be a community where like minded people from all over the world can encourage and inspire each other to live our happiest, healthiest and most impactful lives possible.
I know I always have the best of intentions to live healthy, but then I get tired. And hungry. And the couch looks so good. How do you manage to stay inspired?
I just make exercise and eating right a big priority in my life, the same way I do my work or catching up with friends. I try to fit exercise in to my routine in the morning so it leaves me the rest of the day to veg out if I’m tired. I also always plan ahead to make sure I have access to healthy food. Living well in both mind and body is the greatest gift you can give yourself and for me, just knowing that inspiration enough.
One of your upcoming films “Warm Bodies” with Nicholas Hoult has the most interesting film summary I¹ve read in a long time as a “romantic zombie film”. Can you tell us a bit about it?
Haha yes! “Warm Bodies” is the story of R, a conflicted and empty zombie who has feelings and emotion just like any person. He captures Julie (my character) and takes her back to his abandoned plane full of interesting trinkets and Frank Sinatra records; she instantly realizes that everything she thought she knew about zombies was different. They strike up a friendship and an unlikely romantic connection and through their love the zombies start to heal themselves becoming more human again. It’s full of adventure, humor, drama and so much heart. It’s a really quirky, fun, exciting ride of a movie. It is based on the popular book of the same name by Isaac Marion. It comes out Feb 1st 2013.
You seem to have no shortage of projects to choose from, what’s coming up next for you?
It doesn’t always feel like that haha! I have “Love and Honor” with Liam Hemsworth coming out early next year (Australian DVD release in December – Ed) which is a 1960’s Vietnam war romance movie in a similar vein to “The Notebook” and then I just finished shooting the Terrence Malick movie “Knight of Cups” with Christian Bale, I have no idea when that comes out. I’m now in the trenches looking for my next job!
You can follow Teresa and Your Zen Life on Twitter now @tez_palmer and @yourzenlife.
Your Zen Life is scheduled to launch on 31 October so be sure to check it out then at http://yourzenlife.com/
